daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) (05/26/90)
In article <1990May25.160836.27590@dept.csci.unt.edu> doug@dept.csci.unt.edu (Douglas Scott) writes: >... I assume >that changes in ports (i.e., twisted pair Ethernet) will be part of the >upgrade board. Personally I can live without color, but what about the >supposedly faster O.D., etc., etc.? I guess that's what happens in the >technological fast-lane. >-- >___________________________________________________________________________ >Douglas Scott >doug@dept.csci.unt.edu Yes, the OD will be faster, but twisted-pair ethernet in not foregone, despite its great advantages: nearly all offices are already wired with twisted-pair for phones, with a spare pair (unless you have two lines, or a Princess phone with a lighted dial :-)), and if new wiring is necessary it is cheaper and less delicate to install (e.g., there are lots of people who can install phone wires who know nothing about coax minimum bend radia). UC Berkeley is building a new Computer Science and Electrical Engineering building ($30,000,000???) and I was told thinwire coax would cost $1,000,000 more than twisted pair. (Somebody correct these figures if they're wrong.) Here at Texas A&M University we just built a (more modest) new Computer Science building, and we ran 8 twisted pairs into every office, classroom, and conference room: 3 phone, 3 data, and 2 spares. The lines go to wiring closets on each floor, where they can be patched to terminal servers (9600 baud serial) or to ethernet boxes. Things with ASCII ports or twisted-pair ethernet interfaces just plug and play, and old Suns etc. get twisted-pair-to-15-wire-ethernet transceivers, but NeXTs have to have special coax pulled. (Some of those combinations are due to our peculiar economics, e.g., the University pays for coax-pulling but the Computer Science Department would have to pay for twisted-pair-to-thinwire transceivers.) If a NeXT had a twisted-pair interface as well as thinwire coax it could go anywhere without having to schedule a qualified installer to pull coax through the ceiling. So the bottom line is, petition your NeXT contacts to put a twisted-pair interface AND thinwire coax on the 68040, and we'll all be riding the wave of the future (at least until there's fiber optic into every office :-)). Walter Daugherity Texas A&M University daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Internet) uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher (uucp) DAUGHER@TAMVENUS (BITNET)